From the Principal's Desk

School Photos

School Photos are TOMORROW, 19TH NOVEMBER.

ALL children are to wear full SUMMER UNIFORM.

Boys: Blue shirt, grey shorts, grey socks and black shoes 

Girls: Summer dress, white socks and black shoes

Long hair must be tied up with hair ties which are to be either black, white or royal blue. Necklaces, bracelets and so on are not to be worn.

Children who have scheduled PE classes may bring a pair of runners to change into for the lesson should they wish.

All sibling photos must be ordered online at www.schoolpix.com.au and must be placed before 8:00 am TOMORROW 19th November.

School Operations

I know many of you are wondering if we can commence the transition process for our Years Prep-6 children, if our Music Program and Dance program will return onsite and whether or not we will be able to celebrate in any way the year that has been.

All our directives come from Catholic Education Commission Victoria and are based on the advice of the Chief Health Officer, DHHS and the Victorian Government.

All schools, including government and independent schools, are given the same directives. I have outlined some of these directives below to try to answer most of your questions.

At this stage:

• Visitors to school grounds must be limited to those delivering or supporting essential school services and operations (e.g. student health and wellbeing services, safety, cleaning and maintenance workers).
• School photos are permitted indoors and outdoors.
• Schools must create student and staff ‘bubbles’, whereby student and staff groupings/cohorts are kept as static as possible with limited mixing of groups of student and staff groups
• Whole school assemblies and other non-essential large gatherings must be postponed or adapted through online broadcasts.
• Schools are permitted to hold liturgies for single classes, but these should be celebrated consistently with all other restrictions that apply and the COVIDSafe principles.
• Singing during the liturgy is not permitted.
• Small group kinder-to-school transition activities are now permitted in schools. Group size should not exceed 10 people and no intermixing with other students at the school should occur.
• Year 6  graduation is permitted face-to-face in Victorian schools. Students from the graduating year level and staff can attend in person. Parents/carers and other family members or friends cannot attend in person.
• Outdoor interschool sport can also resume in line with community sport.
• Activities that involve on-site attendance by students from different schools should  be replaced
• Excursions can resume across Victoria for all schools.
• Incursions are not permitted.

I hope you can see from the list above just some of the restraints we currently have to work with and plan around. Having said that,  we are intent on making the next 18.5 school days as beneficial as possible. 

Sun Smart

As we enter into the warmer weather, I draw your attention to our Sun Smart procedures as summarised below: 

• Children are required to wear either the school legionnaire’s hat or bucket hat (both Anti-Cancer Council approved) from mid-August to the end of April whenever they are outside.
• Children without the school hats will be restricted to play in designated shaded areas.
• Children are encouraged to wear a broad-spectrum water-resistant sunscreen (SPF30+).
• Students are to provide their own SPF30 (or higher) broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen.
• Children will be reminded to apply sunscreen prior to recess/lunch breaks and other outdoor activities
• Families are encouraged to purchase for their child the ‘school sunglasses’ (providing 100% UV protection and made to Australian Standards) to wear whenever outside. These are available to order through the school.
• On extreme weather days, children will be kept indoors during morning recess and lunch recess; PE/Sport will be conducted indoors

Have a wonderful week

Stay safe and God Bless

Anthony Hyde

(Principal)

Book Club

Issue 8 of Book Club was distributed to families last week. Orders must be put through by the loop at:

https://mybookclubs.scholastic.com.au/Parent/Login.aspx

Books will be given out to the students in class so there is no need for home delivery this term. However, orders are due by 5:00 pm, 27th November so make sure you have ordered by then. 

Due to the school office closure, orders will not be left at the office for pick up by parents. If you want to order books for Christmas presents, please call me on 0425802950 and you can pick them up from my home. 

I need to be notified of which books are to be picked up this way at your time of ordering so when the books arrive, I can separate the presents out.  

If you have any questions or have trouble ordering through the online portal please let me know. 

Kind regards,

Kylie Feely